The "Digital" Philadelphia Dragon.

The "Digital" Philadelphia Dragon - Image captured by Leica D-Lux3 and manipulated in Photoshop

Images captured digitally has its place too ...

The printing process ...
I started out being ambitious on posting on a daily basis with only medium format B&W film as the only type of image used. But lo and behold, reality does not permit it especially, when work and daily commitments dictates what is priority. So today's post is from my digital camera. I am not a proponent of using only medium format B&W film, however, it is my preferred medium.

Digital camera does have its place in photography. I use it myself on a daily basis. It is quick, it is convenient and it does not require any wet darkroom processing. All this can be done in comfort, in front of the computer.

Even though I use film for my main body of work (wet darkroom is still required for processing the roll of film - I galdly send it out to Tom at Toronto Black & White), I use the digital process for printing all my work. I have to admit, I like that I no longer have a limited time to do all the dodging or burning for a print. If a mistake happens, I can simply hit the "undo" key.

In a wet darkroom, after the crazy dance and hand waving over the print (dodging and burning), processing the print and letting it dry for proper viewing ... then to realize that an area was still too dark or too light, the crazy dance and hand waving starts all over again. This whole process alone may take 45 minutes (may vary with type & size of image) for a print, not counting how many times we have to re-do the printing to get the "perfect" print. Whereas in digital printing, base on the same image, size and dodging/burning process, it may take only 3 to 5 minutes for that one print. If reprinting is required it can be done quite quickly again.

There is nothing wrong for the "diehards" who prefer the wet darkroom printing technique. My hat's off (sincerely) to all of you. Someone still have to keep the "art" of wet darkroom print process alive. I for one am glad for the digital printing process.